#4 El paso’s cultural schizophrenia

The reading for Week 4 from David Romo's Ringside Seat to a Revolution illustrates the many racial divisions that existed in the El Paso/Juárez border from the late 19th-century to the early 20th-century (1881-1917, to be exact). How did the Chinese Exclusion Act (see Lubheid's book), the Mexican Revolution, and the Bath Riots contribute to El Paso's identity crisis, that is, to the disconnect between Anglo El Paso and the El Paso of the Mexican majority and the other racial groups that inhabited the border? How did the photos in this section of the book communicate this sense of cultural schizophrenia? Discuss at least two photos at length (be sure to state the page number and describe the photo before you analyze it). What shocked you or surprised you the most about this section?

El Paso had a generally diverse population consisting of Mexicans, African Americans, Chinese etc. prior to Texas becoming a part of the United States.  After Texas became a state, there was an influx of Anglos that moved in and settled in El Paso.  We can already see where this is going- of course Anglo culture become the more dominant and powerful and it’s evident with the Chinese Exclusion act in which they wanted all Chinese out and to stop coming in.  Many Chinese had to escape and move through underground.  When the Mexican Revolution occurred it was the Mexicans way of standing up for themselves or in other words resistance and a great example of that is the bath riots which I had never heard of prior to this class.   I think that contributed to the identity crisis where Mexicans and other ethnicities weren’t ready to give up what was theirs but Anglos already felt a sense of power and there was that disconnect there.  

The image on page 238-239 really blew my mind because they had all the men naked side by side.  It just reminds me so much of the holocaust and it pisses me off that this always goes unmentioned in history when there are images that prove that it happened.  I also liked the image on page 204 in which it states  “social fraternization and friendship between blacks and Mexicans was not uncommon in Ciudad Juarez during the turn of the century.”  I just find it interesting that two completely different racial groups can come together (even though they probably felt the similar oppressions and discriminations) proving that it really doesn’t matter what your ethnicity is, we are all just human beings and the fact that anglos used to (and even today) discriminate on the basis of skin color is just mind-boggling.